'No Good Deed' is the addictive mystery comedy perfect for a holiday break

Would you like something chewy, delicious and surprising on your holiday menu? Netflix is serving up quite the dish. And you don't even have to clean up afterward.

Created by "Dead to Me" writer Liz Feldman and starring a delightful bunch of TV legends, "No Good Deed" (now streaming, ★★★? out of four) is likely to be your next tasty binge. With the same quirky yet macabre tone Feldman crafted in her 2019-22 Emmy-winning black comedy, "Deed" is darkly humorous fun, a multi-mystery puzzle box full of deceit, danger and the Los Angeles real estate market.

The series excels as both a whodunit and a deeper examination of marriage and relationships, and how much our partnerships can tolerate lies and trauma. Thoughtful and witty scripts, a magnetic cast and a lot of gags make the series work, adding up a lot of little bits to a great whole.

"Deed" follows a group of people all linked by a stunning 1920s Spanish-style home in the affluent Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. The sellers are Lydia (Lisa Kudrow) and Paul (Ray Romano), bickering empty nesters saddled with financial woes and a dark secret.

Spoilers: 'No Good Deed': Who's the killer in the Netflix comedy? And will there be a Season 2?

Then we have the potential buyers: Sarah (Poppy Liu) and Leslie (Abbi Jacobson), an uber-successful power couple hoping the house will replace the hole left in their hearts by infertility; Carla (Teyonah Parris) and Dennis (O-T Fagbenle), a shotgun-married pair hoping to find someplace bigger to live before their baby arrives; and JD (Luke Wilson) and Margo (Linda Cardellini), an out-of-work soap actor and his spendthrift trophy wife from down the street, looking to downsize. And then there's Mikey (Denis Leary), an unwelcome guest from Lydia and Paul's past who comes to the open house but isn't really looking to buy.

It turns out the high-stakes competitive housing market provides the perfect backdrop for a story about a possible murder, mayhem and mothers-in-law. And it's also a handy way to have people drop by unexpectedly while someone needs to hide a body. Whoops!

"Deed" has a lot of characters (and a lot of competing bids), but Feldman has a way of weaving seemingly disparate stories into one thoughtful plot. If it seems too unwieldy after only one episode, trust the process. By the end of its eight-episode run, nearly all the threads are tied up, the mysteries are solved and there's a sense of satisfaction that comes with knowing the hours you spent binge-watching were well spent.

Feldman's plotting is helped by her stacked cast, which has MVPs from "Friends," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Freaks and Geeks" and "Rescue Me" crashing together in a thespian delight. Amid all the storied Gen X veterans, it's the millennials at the party who are most reliable for laughs, particularly Jacobson and Fagbenle.

There are so many twists and turns it's hard to get too far into the plot without spoiler alarms going up. But suffice it to say, there are no slow moments.

So if no good deed indeed goes unpunished, perhaps Netflix will face some future karmic recompense for releasing such a very good show just when we all could use something to curl up with on the couch.

It may not make you feel any better about your relationship dynamics or housing prospects, but you'll definitely be entertained.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'No Good Deed' review: An addictive mystery